The Lost Lands

Adventure Log: 2/25/17

Excerpt from "A Complete Known History of the Lost Lands"

The following story is an abridged version of the tenth chapter of third edition “A History of the Lost Lands,” published in 1497. This publication has permission from the work’s author, the historian Volterian, a highly-regarded expert of Lost Land history and lore.

Coming back from the death is a feat few have ever accomplished. In my research, I have only come across 12 individuals who have completed the task. Five of those who evaded death did so together with help from a god seeking to regain his divine status.

Our heroes fought against a mighty undead horde and lost their lives defending the wall. In death, the group had crossed the veil to a place that looked like their surroundings in life, as Frostbeard later recounted in his journal. Twilight was upon them and other souls made their way toward the Great Portal. As the adventures prepared to climb aboard a wagon heading toward the portal, the druid saw a light beckoning the party to come closer.

The light led to an abandoned apartment building, the dwarf recalled. Inside sat Merick’s deceased brother the warlock Morgan and a young man who revealed himself to be Vashanka.

Vashanka, a neutral god of war, lost his power before meeting the heroes and was seeking ways inside the veil to return to power. In exchange to return the party to the living world, Vashanka would send them back in time to retrieve the Spear of Vashanka, a weapon made of obsidian thought to be taken and destroyed by the Elven Knight Talgarth before the meteor hit the Ruined Lands. Early records of excavations of the ruins showed no signs of the spear.

The fallen god opened a portal sending the party back in time to a day before the meteor hit the island of Zapor, just to the south of the Ruined Lands and where Vanshanka left his spear.

The party arrived on the edge of the island, on the ocean side of the wall that formerly guarded the island and next to an Elven ship. Unfortunately, none of our heroes’ accounts went into detail about the condition or look of the now destroyed artifact.

Overhead, the comet loomed and so the party climbed the mountain, Morgana wrote in a later report to the Circle of Twilight. The incline was so steep, the group tied ropes around their waists to save each other from falls. Once on the ground, the party encountered a large gorilla in the jungle. After defeating the beast, the group made its way to a fort on the other side of the island. Here, the party encountered Talgarth and two of his lackeys. A fight broke out and Morgana delivered the final blow to the elven knight with the Spear of Vashanka herself.

The meteor was closing in, but our heroes’ escaped death once again. The fallen god opened a portal that took the group to Sanctuary in 1427.